Chapter 127
Chapter 127: The Orphanage
That night, Yu Sheng slept in a haze.
Maybe too much had happened lately. Maybe he’d burned too much energy. He fell asleep quickly enough, but once he was out, he sank into a tangle of chaotic dreams. Sometimes it was the museum. Sometimes it was his hometown as he remembered it. Sometimes it was the black forest.
He felt like he woke up a few times. He even thought he heard Irene talking in her sleep. But each time he surfaced, it was like he’d only stumbled into another strange dream.
The restless half-sleep lasted until the second half of the night. Then, all at once, his mind seemed to loosen. The chaos faded, as if something had soothed it into order, and he drifted through a gentle, comfortable light sleep until morning.
When he finally opened his eyes, he saw two Irenes—one on each side—pressing down on his arms. Both arms were so numb he couldn’t feel them.
Yu Sheng lay there for a moment, blinking as his brain caught up. Then he yanked his arms free with a sharp inhale. Pins and needles burned down to his fingertips.
Irene slowly woke up, too. Hair a mess, she rubbed her eyes and sat up with a yawn. “Morning… Why did you sleep so restlessly last night?”
Yu Sheng froze mid-grimace, then understood. “You helped in the second half of the night?”
“Your dreams were too loud,” both Irenes grumbled at once. As they stood, they fixed each other’s clothes and hair with practiced irritation. “It was annoying, so I climbed in and calmed you down.”
Yu Sheng let his arms fall at his sides, expression complicated. After a moment, he cleared his throat. “Ahem. Thanks.”
“It’s nothing.” Irene tilted her head. “Now come help me brush my hair.”
“You pinned me down all night. My arms are still numb,” Yu Sheng said, rolling his shoulders. “Do it yourself. I bought you two little combs. They’re on the bedside table. Anyway, you’ve got two bodies now—brush each other’s hair. Convenient.”
“Oh.”
The two dolls climbed onto the bedside table, found the combs, and started taking turns brushing each other’s hair while muttering nonstop.
“This is why human bodies are so inconvenient,” Irene complained. “They break down so easily. Put pressure on something, bump something, and it’s numb or sore. Look at us dolls—we’re much more practical. We can shatter all over the floor and not make a sound…”
Yu Sheng listened to the rambling, half-dazed, and didn’t really care what she was saying.
Bright morning sunlight poured through the window. Two identical gothic dolls sat in the light, brushing each other’s hair and smoothing their dresses. If they’d just shut up, the scene would’ve been downright beautiful.
Yu Sheng stared, absentminded, and couldn’t help thinking—if two dolls waking up in the sun were already this pretty, then if he really filled an entire room with Irenes someday…
He pictured it.
And then his beautiful fantasy crashed into the image of Irenes crawling across the floor, writhing in the shadows, leaping around, shrieking and yowling.
He shook his head immediately. What a shame. The true tragedy was that the doll had a mouth. Now it was two mouths.
After he washed up, his arms finally recovered. He went to the kitchen and threw together breakfast—though it wasn’t really that early anymore. He fed Foxy, who started prowling the house for food the moment she woke up, and then prepared to head out to meet Little Red Riding Hood at the address she’d given him.
Only when he reached the door did he pause. “Should I bring a gift or something? This is my first time visiting. It feels weird to show up empty-handed.”
Irene had already climbed into Foxy’s arms out of habit, ready to “disguise” herself. She lifted her head. “Bring cookies and candy or something. She’s got a lot of little kids there.”
“Isn’t that kind of cliché?”
“You can’t exactly walk in and hand out a tube of blood to each person,” Irene said, deadpan. “That would be original. And they’d call the police.”
Yu Sheng thought about it and decided she had a point.
So he left with Foxy and one Irene. The other Irene stayed home to watch TV—she was getting more and more used to living as two bodies.
Before he hailed a taxi, Yu Sheng stopped at the small convenience store on the corner, bought a pile of candy and snacks, and then waved down a cab. Following the address Little Red Riding Hood had sent, he headed toward another district.
Borderland was huge, but fortunately the place she’d given him wasn’t too far. About half an hour later, Yu Sheng and the others arrived near the destination.
As soon as he stepped out of the car, the first thing he noticed was how few pedestrians were around.
And the farther he followed the route Little Red Riding Hood had marked, the emptier the streets became.
He’d gotten out at a main-road intersection. Along with the address, she’d sent the short walking path from there. Yu Sheng left the avenue and took a quieter, older-looking lane into a residential area behind the commercial district. It seemed a little newer than the neighborhood around Wu Tong Road 66, but not by much. After ten minutes, he realized he hadn’t seen a single passerby.
Then the lane opened up, and a large compound came into view.
A big courtyard, two connected buildings with several smaller structures clustered around them. The gray-white walls looked old, though not crumbling. A tall perimeter wall enclosed everything. Once-bright paintings on it had peeled away, leaving only faded patches.
A reinforced metal gate blocked the entrance. But what caught Yu Sheng’s eye more was what lined the wall on both sides of it—several familiar metal obelisk devices.
Nodes, set up by the Special Operations Bureau.
Now he understood why the streets outside had gradually emptied.
The entire base of Fairy Tale had been screened off with cognitive isolation measures.
A flash of red entered his view.
Little Red Riding Hood stepped out of the guard booth just inside the gate. She unlatched a smaller side door and hurried over.
“You got here earlier than I thought,” she said.
She stopped in front of him with a complicated smile—welcoming, but nervous and restrained.
It was the first time Yu Sheng had seen that unsteady look on the face of this prematurely mature high school girl.
“I left early because I didn’t want to be late,” Yu Sheng said, smiling back. His gaze slipped past her shoulder toward the courtyard.
On the wall beside the gate, several metal letters that had once formed a sign had been damaged and fallen off. But the traces remained. He could just make out: “XX Orphanage.”
Other than that, the sealed compound had no signs at all.
An orphanage hidden deep in the city—so secret it needed nodes to lock it down.
Yu Sheng wasn’t surprised. Before he came, he’d already guessed part of it.
“Come with me,” Little Red Riding Hood said, stepping aside and gesturing him in. “I already told everyone at home. I don’t have class today, and I’m not on duty. I can show you around.”
Yu Sheng followed her inside, with Foxy and Irene behind him. The courtyard was old, but it didn’t feel run-down.
As they passed the guard booth, Yu Sheng noticed a girl inside, dozing. She looked about the same age as Little Red Riding Hood.
“That’s Cinderella,” Little Red Riding Hood explained casually. “She always looks like she can’t wake up during the day, but she’s actually very alert.” She pointed toward the gate. “Normally we have dedicated guards here during the day—staff sent by the Councilor’s Office. But on weekends, the guardians rotate standing watch. A guardian is basically just an older child, like me.”
“People sent by the Councilor’s Office?” Yu Sheng frowned. He sounded genuinely surprised.
“Fairy Tale is an independent organization,” Little Red Riding Hood said slowly, “but a group of orphans who never grow up, raising a group of even younger children, will eventually run into practical problems we can’t solve. On the other hand, if the government wants to screen children affected by the curse early and concentrate them in safe facilities, an organization like the Councilor’s Office has to step in.”
She kept walking as she spoke, her tone steady. “So we formed a cooperative relationship.
“This orphanage is nominally maintained and operated by the Borderland Councilor’s Office. They provide the location and part of the funding, and they regularly send employees to help us handle real-world issues—legal identity, school enrollment, medical treatment.
“But in practice, the orphanage is self-governed by Fairy Tale. We take in the children they send. And we use our methods to reduce the chances they lose control. Or… even if they do lose control, we keep it contained within these walls.”
She summarized it simply. “Ordinary goes to ordinary. The extraordinary goes to the extraordinary.”
Yu Sheng listened as they crossed the courtyard. After a moment, he shook his head. “It’s not what I imagined.”
“Only when you get close do you realize that everything that looks strange on the surface formed that way for a reason,” Little Red Riding Hood said calmly. “At least for us, this is the most comfortable state. We can live at our own pace, in our own way. Many things are controllable. And for the people who manage Borderland, ‘controllable’ is the return they want most.”
“No, I mean…” Yu Sheng hesitated. “I thought the Special Operations Bureau would be handling all this. I figured they’d be your management department, since they’re the professionals in the extraordinary field.”
Little Red Riding Hood’s steps slowed.
“…We do interact with the Special Operations Bureau often,” she said carefully. “You’re right—they’re experts at handling extraordinary incidents. But most of the time, we can handle what happens inside this facility ourselves. So our relationship with them is usually limited to business dealings.”
She glanced at him. “In daily life, we’re actually closer to the ordinary employees sent by the Councilor’s Office.”
Yu Sheng looked thoughtful. “Is that so…”
“Yes,” she said. “After all, this place doesn’t only have guardians like me. Most of the people here are just children who have nightmares.”